colostomy

As I’ve mentioned before in my vlogs on YouTube, after 6 years of having two ostomy bags, I had a second surgery in May 2016 to go down to just one colostomy bag. At first, all was well but my Crohn’s disease flared up a few weeks afterwards, and they Read more…

Today is Colostomy Day 2016 – a day which has been created by the Colostomy Association in order to raise awareness and find ways of improving the lives of people who are living with a stoma. I am honoured to be the face of this year’s Colostomy Day 2016 campaign (yep, that’s Read more…

Osto-be or not to be? (…get it?!) Well, yesterday I was so sure of my decision to request a permanent ileostomy… until I spoke to my surgeon. Heh. After a nice long chat, we’ve decided to close the ileostomy and re-connect my small intestine to my colon, turning the mucous fistula Read more…

Is it weird that I’m excited about the prospect of a permanent ileostomy? Well, I am! And I get to discuss that option tomorrow with my surgeon, which I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while now. My Current Situation I’ve had two stomas – an ileostomy and a Read more…

Where’s Ostomonday? So we’re already into 2016 and so far I’ve not done any new Ostomonday videos. The reason for this is, if I’m honest, I’ve run out of things to say! If you count all my Ostomonday videos so far, I’ve made 76 videos about various ostomy-related topics. Read more…

One of the things I love about being an ostomy & IBD blogger is getting the chance to voice my thoughts on the current state of stoma care. Today, I attended a Living With a Stoma Summit, sponsored by Coloplast, with the aim to understand where the current gaps in Read more…

Crohn’s & Colitis UK are currently running a campaign called #GoodAndBadDays where they share peoples’ posts on what it’s really like to live with an invisible illness like Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Sometimes you might look fine on the outside, but you feel like utter crap on the inside, whether it’s Read more…

Today is World Ostomy Day and this year’s theme is ‘Many Stories, One Voice’. Because of that, I wanted to share with you my Top Five Most Memorable Ostomy Moments from the last five years and seven months of living with two stomas. There have been good times and bad Read more…

For today’s Ostomonday, I created a new trailer for my YouTube channel, showing my health story (so far)! During my teens, I was rather overweight. At university, I started losing a lot of weight, and getting severe abdominal pains. After university, it got a hell of a lot worse… WATCH NOW: Read more…

Watch the video now: LINK On this week’s Ostomonday video, I spoke about ostomy accessories (like adhesive remover, barrier wipes, mouldable rings, ostomy belts, frames, etc), and how they may be viewed as ‘optional extras’ by healthcare professionals. Personally, they are just as important as the bags & baseplates. But what do Read more…

If you saw my blog post yesterday, you’ll know that I pride myself on not just being someone with Crohn’s disease and ostomy bags, but being someone who enjoys all aspects of my life. Brett Kobie of This Is MedTech wrote an article about me, and highlights how the way Read more…

So if you saw this week’s Ostomonday video (below), you’ll have seen that I experimented a bit with animation, and brought Stan and Colin (my stomas) to life. It was the first time I had ever tried to animate anything and, while I know it’s not perfect, I’m so pleased Read more…

Video on YouTube is here I was contacted by the marketing team at Coloplast a few weeks ago and was asked whether I would be willing to participate in a case study for a new campaign they are working on. Of course I jumped at the chance because I feel Read more…